China’s ascent to global industrial dominance is being solidified through long-term strategic planning and domestic mobilization, rather than a reliance on external migration. By focusing on homegrown technical expertise and the execution of decades-long industrial policies, China has officially ended Germany’s era of dominance in the machine tool sector—the “equipment industry” that serves as the backbone for all industrial production in Germany.
This new reality undermines decades of propaganda issued by Western elites, which posits that mass immigration is essential for economic growth and industrial success. China is essentially blowing up this myth.
In 2025, China surpassed Germany to become the world’s premier export champion in machine tools. According to the Association of German Machine Tool Factories (VDW), China now commands a 21.6 percent share of global exports, while Germany has slipped to 16.7 percent.
While German exports plummeted by 10 percent last year, Chinese manufacturers achieved an 18 percent increase, driven by domestic self-reliance.
As the Welt newspaper writes, it is not just machine tools, but China is instead “ending another key export branch” for Germany and ending the country’s former global dominance.
Notably, Germany and other European countries were promised an economic boon, driven by migrants who would become doctors, engineers, tech specialists, and lawyers. However, that reality has not played out. Instead, anti-immigration China, which has fewer migrants in its entire country than just one German city, Berlin, is pulling ahead in nearly every industrial category.
According to China’s 2020 census, there were approximately 845,697 foreign nationals residing in the entire country — a country of 1.4 billion. In contrast, Berlin alone, just one city in Germany, has over 1 million foreigners living in it.
Growing machine tool dominance
This shift was not accidental but the result of deliberate internal development. VDW chairman Franz-Xaver Bernhard noted that the transition was inevitable: “We all read the Chinese five-year plans. And the machine tool has been one of the most important topics in there for 20 years,” says Bernhard. “In this respect, we were already warned and prepared that Chinese industry wants, perhaps even needs, to push this issue forward so that it itself becomes more independent from imports.”
China’s dominance is no longer restricted to low-end production. Through a strategy of integrating high-quality components into their own systems, Chinese manufacturers are climbing the value chain. As Bernhard explains, “Most Chinese manufacturers now use European-style components: controls, for example, drive systems or measuring instruments. All that we don’t build ourselves, but buy from specialized manufacturers.”
The significance of this sector to China’s broader economic sovereignty is immense. Machine tools are essential for automotive manufacturing, the production of wind turbines, aviation and weapons, and high-tech and complex consumer electronics.
China’s innovating beyond Europe in many fields
Remix News has long explored this new reality, including the first piece in this series: “The big immigration lie: China smashes the myth that foreigners are needed to secure the West’s economic future.“
In that piece from last year, Remix News reported on a Bloomberg article detailing how Western venture capitalists traveled to China to determine firsthand what threat — or opportunity — Chinese companies pose to the renewable and clean tech sectors.
This group of Western investors visited Chinese factories and told Bloomberg the shocking verdict, which is that Europeans and Americans are remarkably behind China in terms of solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, battery technology, and hydrogen. In fact, so much so that it is no longer even worth investing in Western startups focused on these areas.
Instead, these Western investors are choosing to work with and invest in Chinese firms. These same Chinese firms are entirely reliant on homegrown talent, and certainly are not importing millions of Indians, North Africans, and Middle Easterners to drive the amazing success they are seeing across nearly all industries.
One of the venture capitalists told Bloomberg: “It’s very clear that Western investors live in a bubble in their misconceptions about China.”
Bloomberg news further wrote that these venture capitalists “knew China had raced ahead in sectors like batteries and ‘everything around energy,’ but seeing how big the gap was firsthand left them wondering how European and North American competitors can even survive, says Talia Rafaeli, a former investment banker at both Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Barclays Plc who’s now a partner at Kompas VC.”
Germany’s growing contraction
While China leverages its massive domestic population and educational system to fill its factories, Germany is facing a contraction. German machine tool production fell by 8 percent to €13.6 billion in 2025, leading to significant workforce reductions. The German workforce in this sector was reduced by 4 percent, and “one in three companies is planning further reductions in their permanent workforce.”
The VDW indicates that German stagnation is rooted in domestic policy failures rather than a lack of labor influx. Bernhard argues that “the market won’t start if everyone is unsettled,” insisting that “decisions are needed now, a clear stance is needed.”
It is not just machine tools, though. Germany is experiencing a 20-year-high in bankruptcies across various industries. At the same time, the government is discussing raising the retirement age to 73, while the government takes on record debt levels and nearly every city is on the verge of bankruptcy, according to a leading Christian Democrat (CDU) politician.
China is also successfully expanding its market share across Asia, South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe by offering competitive pricing that traditional powers struggle to match. However, it is not just cheaper prices, but also innovative products. In areas such as electric vehicles, China features more advanced batteries,
Even within Germany, Chinese imports are rising disproportionately.
Looking toward 2026, German experts admit their own forecasts are on “shaky ground.” VDW economist Sonna Pelz points out that “the critical point is primarily domestic developments.” Meanwhile, China continues to execute its internal roadmap, proving that industrial dominance can be achieved through disciplined national planning, immigration restriction, and the modernization of its own industrial base.
